


Easy Target

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Category: Young Riders
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:31:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jimmy Hickok's to blame for most of his troubles, but not all of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy Target

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arllama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arllama/gifts).



"What, you here to tell me I'm an idiot, too?" Jimmy asked sourly as Ike walked in. Red Ridge being either more prudish or more crime-ridden than Sweetwater, the holding cells had their own large room in the Sheriff's Office, with four neat cells and a watchman's space complete with desk and lamp, all hidden from the street view.

"You _are_ an idiot," Ike signed dismissively, then went over to the empty watchman's desk and pulled over the chair. "It's not news."

He sat down and pulled his hat off, arranging his gloves on his lap and putting his boots up on the lowest rung of the cell.

"You're here to keep me company, then?" Jimmy sighed, sitting back down on the hard, lumpy mattress and pulled the blanket back around him, too cold to care anymore if there were fleas. "Alright, then. I suppose you can stay if you can be quiet."

Ike's obscene gesture needed no translation. But he was smiling as he signed it.

"Teaspoon here?" Jimmy asked warily. Emma'd already made her presence known - loud enough to be heard back in Kansas - but she hadn't said who she'd come with. She might've come with just Ike, but it was a long ride from Sweetwater and if anyone had known where she was going, they'd have made her take more than one rider for protection.

Ike shook his head. "Sam and Buck."

Made sense - Emma would've brought Sam along to help sort things out. At least with respect to the law; Emma's own justice was from another book entirely and Sam couldn't help him there.  

"Teaspoon know?" Jimmy sincerely hoped not. The events were bad enough; the circumstances were far worse. There were many ways to disappoint the man and Jimmy sometimes thought he was trying for all of them. This wasn't one he'd have chosen for himself.

Ike nodded.

"He pissed?"

An exaggerated eye-roll from Ike.

"Yeah, I know," Jimmy agreed. "I'd be pissed at me, too."

"He's the one who sent me with Emma," Ike signed. "I'd have come anyway - seeing you in prison's always fun. Like a monkey in the circus."

Jimmy frowned, annoyed. The signs were worse than hearing the words sometimes, more expressive. Especially when Ike was being a wiseass. "You know what? I changed my mind. Go hang out with Buck."

Ike held up his hands to signal patience. "Buck is here to chaperone Emma," he signed. "I'm your alibi."

Jimmy stood up and walked over to the cell bars. "Alibi? What do I need an alibi for? Everyone in Red Ridge saw me and it's not like I get the choice of pretending I'm not who I am. Not when Robertson called me out in front of half the town."

The gunfight had been unwanted, as most of them were. It had been demanded by someone Jimmy wouldn't know from Adam, as most of them were. It had gone Jimmy's way, as all of them (thus far) had. Funny thing was that that last part might end up getting him killed.

Ike nodded agreement. "Not an alibi for the law," he explained. "For Russell, Majors, and Waddell. For the drinking."

The Pony Express contract forbade drinking, although that could and was interpreted by riders as "while on duty." But Jimmy had violated both the letter and the spirit of the law two nights ago, which was why even if he got out of jail, he'd still be in a lot of trouble.

"I'm on the schedule for the leg between Red Ridge and Fort Laramie," Ike went on. "You were enjoying a night off after a hard ride."

Ike was not on the schedule; Jimmy'd been sent from Sweetwater to Fort Laramie via Oak Bluffs and Red Ridge and there'd been no relief riders in place. It was easy enough to fake, especially if Teaspoon was willing to back it up. But unemployment was still the least of Jimmy's concerns, heartened as he was that Teaspoon thought enough of him - and his chances - that he'd sent Ike to cover for him.

"Yeah, well, my night off is going to be my last unless Sam can come up with some way to poke a hole in Svenson's story."

Svenson had appeared out of nowhere while there was still steam rising from Robertson's corpse. He'd accused Jimmy of forcing the gunfight when Robertson had begged off, had in fact begged for forgiveness and mercy from James Butler Hickok, known killer of more than a dozen men. It wasn't none of it the truth; Robertson had taunted him when Jimmy'd come to him in the sober light of day asking if he was determined to keep the appointment they'd made the night before, when they'd both been two whiskies past being able to shoot straight. He'd hoped that it had been the alcohol talking, but it wasn't and Robertson had instead called him six kinds of coward for not wanting to draw on him. And so they'd met in the street at noon and Jimmy'd done what he had to do. And then Svenson had done what he did and so here Jimmy was awaiting a trial for murder.

"Have faith," Ike signed. "Sam does."

By the next morning, Sam had more than faith. He had a witness, a girl from the whorehouse who'd heard everything but had been too terrified of getting caught by her madam for contracting on the side to say anything. Jimmy was set free, although he might've hesitated a little before exiting the cell.

"Emma still mad?" he asked Sam.

"More at circumstance than at you," Sam replied with a grin, then sobered. "But you'd best behave for the next while because you're an easier target to hit than Circumstance."

Relieved - on many fronts - Jimmy pretended not to see Ike's assessment of his ability to heed that advice.


End file.
